Defenders of the Altverse, Ep 02: The Saturn Initiative
by MegaBadBunny
Summary: Rose and the Doctor attempt to adjust to their life of non-adventure together in this new universe, but when Rose gets a call from an old friend about an explosion at a Torchwood lab, it would seem the universe has other plans in store.


The explosion rocked the street so hard, people thought an earthquake had struck.

Screams and screeching fire alarms filled the smoky air inside Crittendon Lab as people spilled out of rooms in a rush of panicked breaths and desperate footfalls. Scientists and engineers and technicians alike struggled through the halls, pushing past each other in a chaotic amoebic mass, while whole sections of wall caved in and collapsed all around them. Sparks spat out of wires and cables hanging limply from Swiss cheese ceilings. Great hunks of machinery shrieked as they malfunctioned and died.

Most of the people inside the building scrabbled and strained to escape the din, but Colin swam against the crowd.

"Oi! Colin!" a voice rang out amongst the noise. Colin felt a hand on his arm and glanced down to see Ripley clutching at the sleeve of his lab jacket. "Where the hell are you going?" Ripley demanded, eyes flashing in fear. "Exit's back that way!"

"I've got to make sure my project is intact," Colin told him. "Okay?"

The bewilderment in Ripley's face suggested that no, this was very much _not_ okay. "Are you mad?" he asked. "It's got to be right in the thick of the fire. You'll be killed!"

"I'll be fine," Colin insisted. "Just wait for me outside, I'll come find you when I'm done. All right?"

He tried to shake his friend off in the crowd—he half-hoped that Ripley would give up following after him, hoped Ripley would run off and save himself, or at the very least, maybe that Ripley would lose track of him in the mess—but as always, he was a bit difficult to overlook. Even if he didn't have a long blonde ponytail and skin so freckled you could play connect-the-dots on it, Colin stood at least half a head over everyone else in the building. And his long stride wasn't fast or broad enough to deter the small but fierce Ripley.

"It isn't worth it!" Ripley hissed, holding his necktie over his mouth in a futile attempt to block the thickening smoke. He coughed into the tie and dug his fingers tightly, almost painfully, into Colin's arm. When Colin didn't reply, Ripley gave his arm a pull. "It's too dangerous!" he shouted. "You can always go get it later. Please!"

Colin paused for a moment, catching his breath. It scalded his throat.

"Ripley, I've got to," he panted. "I don't have a choice. I don't know how this thing will react to extreme heat. It's unstable. The results could be catastrophic. Much worse than what we're dealing with right now. I can't let that happen. You understand that, right?"

Ripley stared at Colin, perhaps debating whether or not he should argue. After a second, he nodded, his dark fringe bobbing in his eyes. "Then I'm coming with you."

Colin scoffed. "The hell you are. You've got to properly organize this evacuation, get everyone to a minimum safe distance." _Just in case_, he added silently.

He pulled out of Ripley's grasp as he headed back down the hall, shouldering past the last of the employees scrambling to get out.

"Colin!" Ripley called after him. "It's not worth your life!"

Colin heaved an impatient sigh and turned on his heel, pulling Ripley into a tight hug before he had time to react. Ripley gave a small start, but didn't fight back, didn't pull away. He just froze, his face pressed into Colin's chest, pressed so close that Colin could feel the movements of his eyelashes like fluttering wings.

He breathed in Ripley's comforting scent for just a moment, savoring the clean smell of shampoo mingled with just the faintest musk of hormones. Colin willed himself to smell it over the stench of smoke and burned rubber, forced himself to hear Ripley's shuddering breaths over the howl of alarms overhead and the snap-crackle-hiss of the building burning and disintegrating around him. Forced himself to appreciate these things, because it might be the last time he got to.

_Just in case_.

"You're wrong, you know," Colin whispered into the hollow beneath Ripley's ear, his lips just barely grazing the tiny blue star tattooed on the soft skin there. "Some things are worth dying for."

He took off before Ripley could recover from his shock and complete the embrace, locking Colin in with his slender but surprisingly strong arms, because if he let Ripley hug him, if he allowed himself that bit of comfort and contact, he didn't think he could through with his plan. His stupid, ridiculous plan. No room for thinking or feeling or worrying there.

He had a potential nuclear disaster to avert.

(He was probably going to die.)

Colin stumbled down the hallway, ducking as low as he could, remembering the days in school when they learned about fire safety, about fire and heat rising, about the relative safety of the floor. He prayed that Ripley would listen to him just this once and stay behind, and when he glanced back to check, through the fog he could just make out his friend. Ripley collected himself and barked orders at the retreating escapees. Taking charge of the situation, like he always did.

Damn, Colin thought wistfully. He wished he'd kissed him.

He jumped back just in time to avoid being struck by a piece of falling ceiling. Right. Potential nuclear disaster. He had a job to do.

Colin clambered over bits of wall and ceiling and crushed glass from blown-out observation windows. The wailing of the different alarms and warnings overhead pierced his ears. His heart pulsed in his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing painfully up and down with each beat. He could hear, smell, and feel the fire raging up ahead, smoky and acrid and pungent. He dragged himself forward until he reached a room at the end of the corridor.

Room 405. His lab.

The crumpled door hung heavy off its hinges, popped under the weight of the busted and sagging doorframe. Colin cringed at the sight of it, and the thought of what he might find inside. He steeled himself and pushed through.

Thick black smoke filled the room and choked his lungs, coated his glasses with soot and grime. The explosion had originated in a room down the hall, as far as Colin could tell, but the resulting fire was rapidly spreading this way; it was growing by the moment, its hungry flames greedily devouring everything in its path. Colin could see its orange-gold tongues licking at the walls even now.

As the fire crept toward him, as smoky air lanced his throat and sweat dripped into his eyes, Colin fell to the floor and groped along the craggy and ruined linoleum, plasticy-rubber pieces cracked and ripped open like wounds in the blast. He felt the floor groan beneath him and wondered just how badly the building's infrastructure had been damaged; he prayed that the beams would hold out just a little bit longer. He reached out his hands, fingers splayed in a blind grope, and touched rather than saw his way around the room, palms traveling over grit-covered floor and frayed cords and splayed chair-and-table legs. He felt a jumble of plastic containers thrown across the floor, a mess of papers strewn about, and the thick, solid base for one of the bigger projects tucked into the corner of the room, silent and long-forgotten for months. He coughed and crawled until his fingertips met the sharp edge of the double-locked cabinet along the west wall. Colin pulled his keycard from his trouser-pocket, reciting the cabinet's keycode in his head.

But when his arm swung forward to swipe the keycard, it met nothing. No resistance. His arm fell heavily through the air. He scooted forward, blinking smoke and ash out of his eyes, and peered into the cabinet's dark depths.

The cabinet door was wide open. The cabinet was empty. His project was gone.

Colin thrust both hands into the cabinet, sweeping all of the shelves in a desperate attempt to find his project, a quiet _no no no no no_ emitting from his lips. But there was no mistaking what he saw, or rather, what he didn't see. His project was missing from its perch. The stainless steel shelves bore nothing but the orangey-black reflections of fire and smoke.

What the hell had happened to his project?

He swore under his breath and threw his keycard to the ground, heard it splinter at his feet. There was nothing for it. He couldn't search for the device in the fire. Assuming the bloody thing didn't blow up and destroy them all, he would have to interrogate his coworkers later to find out who had been stupid enough to check out his project without his express permission. Then he'd give the idiot a sound verbal thrashing. Maybe a physical one, too, just to be sure the point got across.

He had just started back out the room, hoping to escape before the fire ate away his escape path, when something gave him pause.

One of the lab's computers was still on.

Most of the computer monitors in the room were destroyed in the explosion, their once-pristine hi-resolution screens now a mess of blinking, black, and dead pixels, their surfaces smudged and dim. But there, at the end of the row, damaged and burnt, yet somehow flickering feebly in the grey air, one monitor remained functional. One monitor displayed the lab's network of files, taunting Colin with the promise of data that would surely disappear in the fire—the backups likely wouldn't survive the firehoses, and the data was too sensitive for storage on the cloud. The last working computer was Colin's final chance to grab some data before years of research were lost in the fire. Then at least his reckless trip back into the inferno wouldn't have been for nothing.

Colin bit his lip. If ever there had been a sign from God, this was surely it.

Ripley was never going to forgive him for this.

He grabbed a flash drive out of his pocket and plugged it into the computer tower. Colin coughed and gagged into the crook of his arm, dirtying his nose with the soot and dirt on his sleeve. He one-handedly entered commands and inquiries into the last working computer, rushing to transfer as many files to the drive as possible. His fingers danced and flew over dirty keys. He swiped at his eyes, under his glasses, in a futile attempt to move the sweat away.

Just a little bit longer…

A small grey box popped up on the screen, and Colin frowned.

_Initiate session? Y/N_

He quickly tapped "N", wondering what the hell the computer was talking about, hoping he wasn't risking his life and limb for a terabyte of useless corrupted data.

"_Session initiated_," Colin heard a computerized voice chime through the cacophony.

"Wait, what?" he wheezed.

A flash of light caught his eye, and he looked up to see that the wall opposite him was bathed in an unearthly purple glow, his body creating a dark silhouette in the smoke.

"Oh, no," he said. The blood drained from his face.

He whipped around. The machine in the corner was powering up, glowing purple beneath its protective tarp, its internal gears whining and grinding as it woke from its mechanical slumber. The hum of its inner workings overpowered even the sounds of the fire and alarms, filling the air, vibrating the floor. Its purple light grew ever-brighter, sending sharp lances of light outward, piercing the haze.

Colin stared and his mouth fell agape. The machine had never done this before. Its scientists had all but given up on it. It was, as far as everyone was concerned, dead.

"No," he said, whirling back round to the computer. He typed frantically. "I said no! Do not initiate!"

He entered a manual override. The computer screen flickered, but did not respond. The device behind him grew louder and louder. Colin tried a backup protocol. Nothing happened.

Colin panicked.

He fell to the ground once again, felt along the cables and wires for one of the machine's many power coils. He found one and started to pull.

"_Session begins in fifteen seconds_," the crisp computer voice informed him. "_Countdown begins now. Fifteen. Fourteen…_"

The coil scorched his hands. Colin jerked away, swearing loudly.

"_Eleven. Ten_…"

Colin removed his lab jacket and wrapped it around his two hands. He pulled on the power coil with all of his might, throwing the sum of his body strength into his effort to disconnect the coil from the power source. Static shot through the air around him, sent shivers down his spine as it coaxed the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end.

"_Seven. Six_…"

He wasn't going to be able to stop it, he realized. A voice started screaming in the back of Colin's head.

_Run run run run run run RUN RUN_.

"Five, four…"

Colin pushed up and darted toward the door.

"Three, two…"

The wall caved before him in a cascade of plaster and wood and dust, knocking Colin backward and forcing him into the arms of the purple-lit device. Colin let out a shout as he became entangled in the protective tarp, as he scrambled to get out of the way before—

"One."

The bright purple light expanded and grew until it filled the room completely, the static electricity arcing and dancing outward, branching like white-hot phosphenes, lancing through the air in a violent display of bright pain. The light hummed and shrieked and exploded in a flash and a bang.

When the light cleared, the only thing left of Colin was his scream.

* * *

Rose couldn't stop laughing.

"Oh, come on, I haven't even got to the best part yet," the Doctor protested.

Rose did her best to stifle her giggles, but couldn't hide her grin. "Right, go on then," she urged, popping another chip into her mouth.

The Doctor launched back into his story, hands gesturing animatedly as he spoke.

"So we're stuck in the web, right? And both of my hands are bound—there's just no way I'm reaching the sonic, no matter what. But Donna, see, Donna's hanging just a little ways below me, and one of her hands is almost free. So as soon as we're alone in the temple, I look down at her, and I say…"

His face grew serious. "'I'm sorry, Donna. I'm so, so sorry.'"

Rose's brow furrowed in concern.

"'But unless you want to get eaten by a giant space worm, you're going to have to rummage about my trousers.'"

Rose started laughing again, pressing her hand against her mouth.

"And that's how Donna and I got eaten by a giant space worm," the Doctor finished, ruffling the back of his head as he laughed a bit himself.

"Sounds like I missed a lot of good stuff," Rose mused. "Met Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, saw a planet full of Ood, almost got killed on the planet full of Ood. How come we never did anything that nice?"

"Oh, I don't know. I thought having your face stolen by the telly was a riot."

Rose threw a chip at him. He caught it and popped it in his mouth, shooting her a cheeky grin.

The Doctor and Rose had chatted the better part of an afternoon away in the hole-in-the-wall chippy, asking questions and telling stories about their time apart, all the while feasting on some of the most gorgeous chips Rose had ever eaten. Rose had discovered the chips place a few years back, much to her delight; something about its grease-smell and sticky vinyl seats and peeling wallpaper and quiet background murmur of teenage gossip and outdated pop-songs put her at ease. Out of all of the places in her new universe, the chippy was one of the places that felt the most like home, and she'd been quite happy to introduce the Doctor to its charms. Sitting in a chippy with the Doctor, talking about adventures in the TARDIS, wearing jeans and a hoodie instead of a spacesuit or HAZMAT suit or suit-suit, Rose felt more normal than she had in a good, long while.

As for the Doctor's suit…well, she could get used to the blue.

(All of his new suits were blue, pinstriped, and nearly identical, and Jackie had heaved a sigh of resignation upon seeing his fabric choices, muttering something about how if he survived _Dar-leks_ and the like, then surely a little bit of wardrobe variety wouldn't kill him? The ensuing mini-lecture on how _actually, Jackie, on Cephaloidia, a change in your wardrobe_ _can get you killed by the literal fashion police _had elicited an eye-roll from Jackie and a very confused look from the tailor.)

The Doctor finished his chips and licked the salt-and-vinegar residue off his fingers, his eyes traveling over the inside of the chippy. Rose knew he was cataloging the subtle differences between this universe and the one he'd left behind, knew he was picking up on things she'd never notice. Minute changes in smells, colors, air density and composition, standard measurements of booths and windows and sidewalk widths.

She wondered how many differences he'd already observed in her.

"And what about you?" the Doctor asked.

"What about me?"

"What adventures has Rose Tyler got up to in this universe, hmm?"

Rose played for time, swirling one of her chips in the puddle of vinegar pooling in the bottom creases of her wax-paper basket. She knew she was going to have to tell him everything eventually. She couldn't keep it all hidden forever. She'd slip up, or Jackie or Pete would say something, or he'd get suspicious, snoop around and figure it all out. Her secrets were held back by faulty dams, and cracks would soon start forming in the walls.

Still. The walls hadn't burst just yet.

"Oh, nothing you haven't already heard," Rose replied. "It was pretty much work, sleep, work, sleep, build a Dimension Cannon, sleep. The usual."

"Is that all, though? Surely you must have some stories. I can't be the only one prattling on all the time."

Rose chuckled. "Look, it's all really dull stuff, I promise. The most exciting thing in my life is the gossip I overhear at the annual Vitex holiday party."

"Come on, now," the Doctor argued. "You've got a whole new life in a whole new universe. You built a Dimension Cannon. You visited a host of other worlds. You work at a parallel Torchwood. You're now the heiress to the vast Vitex corporation. That means you've got stories to share!"

"D'you want to hear the tabloid stories? Is that it? Because aside from what I told you the other day, that's about all the tales I have to tell," Rose replied.

The Doctor leaned forward, the cracked vinyl seat groaning beneath him in protest. "Well, now. We both know that's not true," he told her, his face suddenly earnest. He almost looked worried.

A lump lodged itself in Rose's throat. Her left leg jiggled nervously. How much had he already guessed? What did he know?

"We both know that the highly publishable Vitex Heiress has lots of stories to share," the Doctor continued, a sly smile spreading over his face.

The Doctor reached inside his jacket pocket and withdrew a small parcel of folded-up papers, unfolding and pressing them flat on the table. The papers fell open to reveal images printed off Rose's home computer, all of them featuring Rose in a series of varying outfits and poses. Fraternal twin floods of relief and embarrassment surged through her.

"Oh god," she laughed weakly, pushing her hair behind one ear. "Where did you get those?"

"I conducted a search utilizing a global network array of electronic routing paths and optical information technologies."

Rose cast about for a translation. "You Googled me?"

The Doctor grinned. "I Googled you."

"Stalker," Rose teased.

"What else was I supposed to do when you were sleeping last night?" the Doctor protested.

"Oh, I don't know. Sleep?"

The Doctor made a face. "Waste of time. Why would I do that when I could plumb the depths of the internet and nose about for all the things you won't tell me? Especially when it reveals these little gems!"

He picked up the topmost paper, a computer printout featuring a cover photo Rose had shot for Vogue UK about a year after her arrival. Amidst the smaller headlines that advertised "101 summer must-haves" and "32 new ways to please your man—with veg!" stood out one large pink coverline that read: "Rose Tyler, Vitex Heiress Speaks Up and Speaks Out." Rose's face hid behind the lines of text and an Audrey-Hepburn hat, soft pink lips parted and black-rimmed eyes glancing shyly over a pair of oversized designer sunglasses.

"I never knew the Vitex Heiress was so edgy and mysterious," the Doctor laughed, waving the paper in front of Rose. "Did you?"

Rose rolled her eyes and reached for the paper, but the Doctor's hand snapped back too quickly for her. "Now now," he clucked. "We were just getting acquainted, the Heiress and I!"

"Come on, you've had your fun," Rose told him, and she reached for the paper again, faster this time. Once again, the Doctor was too quick for her, inching the paper out of her reach. He grabbed the stack of papers off the table and sprang out of the booth.

"Rude," he said, thumbing through the papers in his hand. "Hardly behavior worthy of an heiress," he said conspiratorially to one of the girls sitting in a nearby booth.

The girl looked up at Rose and pointed with one pink-painted fingernail. "Oh my god, he's right—you're the Vitex girl!"

"So she is! And isn't she even lovelier in person?" the Doctor asked, sending a wink Rose's way.

Rose just barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him again. "All right, out!" she half-laughed, half-groaned, pushing the Doctor out the chippy door and into the busy street. She started to hail a taxi, but the Doctor set off down the road the moment his plimsolls hit the pavement, his long legs propelling him quickly past street vendors and shop fronts and passersby. Rose let out a sigh and jogged after him.

"This is very nice, isn't it?" the Doctor asked once Rose caught up with him, calling over the noise of the cars driving by. He pulled a page out of the cluster, the paper crackling in his hands. It bore a short interview with Vanity Fair and an accompanying photo series of Rose, her hair disheveled and nails painted black and her eyes dark-ringed and smoky. In each photo she posed with a champagne bottle in varying states of emptiness, glass champagne flutes smashed on the floor all about her on a bleak warehouse floor. She wore a black leather-and-fishnets number that fashion editors had praised as "grunge-chic" but her mother had deemed "a massive Madonna ripoff."

"I wonder how long they spent on your hair trying to make it look like you'd just got out of bed," the Doctor said, tilting the page this way and that as he pretended to appraise and examine it at multiple angles.

"You're one to talk," Rose pointed out, swerving to miss a pile of rubbish upended on the sidewalk.

The Doctor sniffed. "I haven't the faintest clue what you're talking about."

Rose reached for the pages again and the Doctor nimbly dodged her efforts, picking up speed as he walked past shops and pedestrians. And of course, miraculously, he managed to avoid running into anyone or anything without even looking, his eyes trained firmly on the pages in front of him as he dodged walkers and prams and dogs on leads with no effort at all.

Rose kind of hated his guts sometimes.

"Oh, I like this one," he said, flipping the page about so she could see. It featured a particularly embarrassing photo of her standing on a set that looked like the '69 moon landing, her hair huge and teased and flying back, her body squeezed into an unfortunate and very tight silver flight attendant costume. "Rose Tyler's Torchwood Exclusive!" was plastered across the top of the image in Star Wars inspired lettering.

"I wonder if anyone's ever told this photographer there's no wind on the moon," the Doctor mused.

Rose sighed in resignation, shoved her hands into her pockets as she followed after him. "Look, it was all Mickey's idea, okay?"

The Doctor glanced over at her, his eyebrow and attention both piqued. "Go on."

"Mickey and Mum didn't have any trouble blending in when they got here," Rose explained. "They just sort of picked up where Ricky and the other Jackie left off. But I couldn't do anything like that."

"No Rose Tyler in this universe," the Doctor remembered. "Which makes a universe sorely lacking. Believe me, I know."

Rose smiled a bit at that and bumped her shoulder against him. "So here I was, in a whole new world, without any papers or a penny to my name. And I couldn't just squeak under the radar—Pete's a big deal round here, people were bound to notice if he suddenly had a full-grown daughter hanging about all the time. So Mickey figured we'd come up with this sensational story about how Mum and Pete adopted me out when I was born—cos they were so poor, see, couldn't afford a kid—and then they could make a big public deal out of it when they 'found' me, all these years later. The whole Tyler family, reunited at last!"

"A story plucked straight from the papers," the Doctor nodded.

"And fed right back to 'em," Rose agreed. "I do an interview with a different paper or magazine every so often to keep up appearances, keep ahead of any stories the tabloids might come up with. And it's a win-win all round. Keeps me believable, gives a good story for the press, generates some good publicity for Vitex—"

"And good publicity for you, too," the Doctor said drily, nodding at a bystander who'd stopped to pull out their smartphone a few meters away. Rose could hear their loud electronic shutter sounds _clicking_ and _swishing_ from where she stood, the flash brightening up her vision in a series of mini-fireworks.

"Yeah, well, everything has its downsides," she said. She pulled up her sleeve and flashed the man a very rude sign indeed.

"Very classy," the Doctor chuckled.

"I'm a few rotten paparazzi past classy now. And you mark my words, you're gonna show up on some rag next to me tomorrow." Rose gestured with both hands, framing the headline in the air. "'Vitex heiress and mysterious stranger! Is he her boyfriend? Is he her lover? Is he her secret husband?'"

"'Is he the cad who stole her blouse?'" the Doctor supplemented, procuring another page from his stack. The photo showed Rose lounging in an empty old-fashioned bath, clad in nothing but a voluminous pink tulle skirt, her arms drawn up over her chest in a pose that displayed the stacks of designer bracelets and rings adorning her wrists and hands while also conveniently (and just barely) hiding her otherwise uncovered breasts.

Rose saw the picture and felt her cheeks flushing to roughly the same color as the tulle skirt. "See, this is why I wanted to go to the other universe," she complained.

"You mean you would have robbed me of the opportunity to witness this marvelous and saucy photo?" the Doctor asked in mock-outrage.

"Shut up," Rose chuckled, reaching for the offending item, but the Doctor was too quick for her again. He set off once more down the street, slipping between a food-vendor and a large pram without even turning his head to look.

"Saucy," she heard the Doctor say to himself. "Saucy. Saucy. Saucy, saucy, saucy—oh, now I've gone and said it too much and it sounds funny. Saucy. SAUCY. Ooh. I'm not sure I like how that word feels in my mouth, come to think of it. The other mouth liked it but this one doesn't. Also not a big fan of 'moist' or 'pamphlet' or 'defenestrate'. 'I defenestrated the saucy moist pamphlet.' Good grief, that's one of the worst things I've ever uttered. But really—"

He whirled around to face Rose, a new page in hand. "My favorite thing in here is your Cosmo UK interview." Rose leapt forward to snatch the paper away from him, but once again, he dodged her.

"'The Vitex heiress loves chips, traveling'—oh really?—'watching telly, and defending the earth—from litter!'" the Doctor read from her interview, laughing.

Rose reached for the pages again. The Doctor eluded her grasp, stepping a few paces away until his heels hit the edge of the curb.

"It says here your relationship status is 'complicated'," the Doctor read. He glanced up at Rose. "What does that even mean?"

"Oh my god. Give it!"

"And let's see, 'Dating Do's'—oh, it says here you like a sharp-dressed man," the Doctor continued. He glanced down at his suit. "Anyone I know?" he asked, and his face was the very picture of smugness.

Rose lunged for the pages once more, this time catching them right as the Doctor tried to yank them away. She refused to let go, her fingers stubbornly clinging to the smooth surface, the pages crackling loudly under her grasp. The Doctor pulled her along with the photos, throwing off his center of balance; he grabbed her about the waist to keep from falling into the street, and Rose would have crowed in victory at his rare lapse of grace except, oh. They were standing very close to each other now.

"Don't flatter yourself," Rose said.

The words served as an invisible barrier, a halfhearted attempt to verbally push him away without actually pushing. She wished she didn't sound so breathy when she said it, but it was impossible not to with so little space between them. They stood nearly face-to-face, as close as they could with the height discrepancy. She could count his freckles at this distance. This new Doctor had very, very dark eyes.

Rose's brain went oddly empty as the noise around them fell away, the screech of tires on the road and the slap of shoes against pavement and the murmur of voices chittering and laughing giving way to the sound of her heartbeat pulsing in her ears. The Doctor's smug smile slowly faded away as he looked down at her.

Strange, he often couldn't hold her gaze. He always looked away before she did, like he was afraid that she would see something she shouldn't. But he didn't look away now.

His hand tightened on her waist. Rose swallowed. She wondered how he would react if she kissed him again.

"Rose," the Doctor said.

"Hmm?" Her heart rate sped up at the sound of her name and she felt a faint ringing in her ears.

"Your mobile's ringing."

Rose felt her jacket-pocket buzzing and a cheerful chirping emerged, bringing all of the city noises back in booming surround-sound. Someone was calling her on her new mobile. No, strike that, Rose thought—someone with _really rubbish timing_ was calling her on her new mobile.

"Sorry," she laughed, feeling a little stupid and a more than a little embarrassed. She stepped back, careful to avoid looking at the Doctor as she did so. She took out the mobile and checked the caller ID. Of course it didn't have a name, it was a new mobile, after all, and she hadn't been able to transfer all of her contacts, but she remembered the number. Goodness knew she'd called it often enough, once upon a time.

She couldn't imagine why he'd be calling her now. And she couldn't imagine it was for anything good.

"You look worried," the Doctor said. "Why do you look worried?"

Rose didn't reply, just tapped the screen a split-second before the call would have ended.

"Ripley?"

"Wotcha," said Ripley's tired voice on the other end. "How's it going?"

"Why are you calling?" Rose asked. "What's wrong?"

She heard a plungerlike sound on the other end, the wet _plunk_ of a cork popping out of a new wine-bottle. "Not gonna ask me how I've been?"

"Sort of thought the 'what's wrong' summed that up."

Ripley took a swig out of the wine bottle, the liquid sloshing loudly against the glass. "Well, the lab's blown up, for starters."

"Oh my god," Rose said, horrified. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. But Colin's missing."

Rose searched for a moment, trying to place the name. "Your boyfriend?"

"Not yet. Can you come to the lab?"

Rose worried her tongue between her teeth. She scuffed the toe of one trainer against the ground. "I'm not sure how much I can help. I'm sort of out of the game now."

"I don't care about that."

"Ripley, I think this is a job for the police—"

"You owe me. Don't make me bring Plymouth into this."

_Plymouth_.

That name sent Rose's blood pressure plummeting straight to the ground, filled her body with pins and ice. She was glad the Doctor was pretending not to eavesdrop on her conversation, glad he'd turned his head for a moment so he couldn't see how white she'd gone. She wondered how much of Ripley's voice he could hear.

"Rose. Please," Ripley said quietly.

Maybe she could just chuck the mobile in the Thames and pretend she'd never got the call. How could Ripley say that name to her? How dare he?

She closed her eyes. "Give me an hour."

She hung up before Ripley could respond, gripping the mobile so tightly that her hand shook with the force of it.

"You all right?" the Doctor asked, concerned.

Rose pushed her hair back from her forehead, pressing her thumb and fingers along her hairline. She could feel a headache coming on. "Yeah, I'm fine," she lied, shooting him a grin. "I've just got to go take care of something. Torchwood business. Want to come with?"

The Doctor clicked his tongue and started paging through his papers again. "I don't know. Your interviews aren't going to read themselves. And I'm terribly eager to know all about your fall fashion tips."

"I'll be sure to tell you in the car," Rose laughed, grabbing him by the hand.

"What are we doing, then?"

Rose's smile softened. "We're gonna go help a former friend."


End file.
